The folks behind the twisted takes of beloved childhood characters such as Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 1 and 2 as well as Peter Pans: Neverland Nightmare are back with another nightmarish rendition of a Disney classic, Bambi: The Reckoning from director Dan Allen (Crypt TV). As if the story of Bambi wasn't heartbreaking enough with the horrible killing of his mother by woodsman hunters (don't lie, you always cried during this scene), the folks at Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Distribution take things from bad to worse with Bambi and forest of friends. For those out of the loop, Jagged Edge and ITN are knee deep in development of a full blown cinematic universe of iconic childhood characters who have crossed over into the public domain, now twisting them into violent and monstrous horror stories. Jagged Edge aren't the only ones doing this though, as the horror-fication of public domain characters (or "IP-sploitation" as Dr. Rebecca McKendry refers to it on the Colors of the Dark podcast) has been a trend for a while. However, as far as I know they're the only ones going full Marvel Studios with it and expanding it into a shared cinematic universe.
So, how good is Bambi: The Reckoning? While I went in with admittedly low expectations, I'm happy to report it's a decently made horror flick, with more than its fair share of praises to be sung. The films story has a solid message, and it's expressed in a fun almost pulpy way, with a team of evil scientists dumping chemical product in the woods where Bambi resides, mutating him and his friends into horrible monsters. The themes for environmental consciousness and the amount of damage we do to our planet with chemicals and waste doesn't go unnoticed, and the evil scientists get some well-deserved violence put upon them throughout. There's also a handful of innocent casualties, mostly in the main characters family. Xana (Roxanne McKee) and her son Benji (Tom Mulheron) are visiting the chemically altered woods to visit family, which lead to them become prey for Bambi, running through the woods as a horrendous and brutal monster left from the chemical transformation. The film also doesn't have any fluff of fat to it, which I appreciated and lands a surprisingly emotional ending by the end of it's trim runtime.
The performances are all pretty solid, especially from McKee and Mulheron who are the focus for most of the runtime. I also really enjoyed Alex Cooke's performance as Simon. The family dynamic serves as a nice parallel to Bambi, and the family he's lost. Speaking of Bambi, that's another highlight of this film. The creature design for Bambi was like a folk horror metal album come to life, it doesn't overexert itself visually and is simple enough, but the detailing you notice the more you look at it through the film was awesome to see. Think of a zombie deer on steroids, that's your monster.
One complaint I did have with the film was that it was too dark, and I mean that in a literal sense. So many shots are drenched in darkness, it feels like they either forgot to have an extra light on set half the time or they didn't even glace as the exposure settings during the edit. Whatever the case may be, it was a bit distracting. There are a handful of shots though that the low lighting helped with, it looks cool in some scenes… just not the whole film. The lighting could also be an excuse to hide some of the CGI, which is admittedly 50/50 here. In some shots it's fine, but when it's not it's noticeably rough. The kills were solid enough, some gnarly practical effects and one scene in particular with a bear trap had me grinning ear to ear in my screening.
Overall, Bambi: The Reckoning is an impressive step up from the previous installments in Jagged Edges library, and has restored my faith in this cinematic universe, or the "Poohniverse" as it's being called.
Bambi: The Reckoning is in theaters now
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